Muslims Host First Ever Hebrew Conference Held in South Asia

The first-ever Hebrew language and culture conference in South Asia was hosted at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and organized by none other than Muslims scholars in a show of Muslim-Jewish amity in India.

Among a dozen Indian and Israeli institutions represented at the “Hebrew Language and Culture: Reception, Self Conception and Intercultural Relations” conference was Ariel University, located in Samaria, which is considered by most Arab and Muslim leaders as “occupied” by Israel.

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The event was significant, not only because of its uniqueness and location at the university whose students have frequently demonstrated against Israel’s military operations, but also because it was largely organized by Muslim scholars at a time when Jews and Muslims are perceived as natural adversaries.

The conference focused on literature and psychology; language and religion; names in ancient and modern Hebrew; Halakhah, Jewish identity and modernization; law and language; Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic and the mutual influences; the language of the Bible, as well as sessions held on the Indian Jews, and India in Hebrew Literature and Hebrew in India.

Ambassador of Israel to India Alon Ushpiz said that “the impressive depth of the discussions in the conference is a mirror image of the academic passion found in Israel for Indian culture, heritage, history and languages.”

“The key to our mutual academic fascination is the fact that both Israel and India have managed to preserve their ancient heritage while constantly moving forward with the rapidly changing world,” he said.

Jawaharlal Nehru University, the institution that hosted the conference, is currently the only Indian university that offers courses in the Hebrew language, Jewish and Holocaust Studies, which are absolutely non-existent in Indian academia in spite of a continuous Jewish presence in India for at least twelve centuries.

The reason this happened is that it's India. India, as in the country that was partitioned in 1947 to remove and separate the largely Muslim population in what is now Pakistan. India knows better than any country on the planet other than Israel what Islam, and Islamism, are really about. I am far from an expert on the Muslim population of India, but I suspect that the Muslims who reside in India other than in Cashmir also understand Islamism. Now if only they could raise their voices — and keep their heads attached to their shoulders long enough for the rest of the world to hear them.
I'm not holding my breath.